Ask HN: Why do you think OpenAI forbids changing email addresses?

[mthoms]

OpenAI doesn't allow paying ChatGPT+ subscribers to change the email address associated with an account. But this is entry level functionality for web apps. 99% of all web apps in the world allow this.

So, why do you suppose this is?

I'm currently signed up with my personal email address hello@myname.com and want to use something more anonymous. Is it possible that this is exactly the kind of thing they are trying to prevent?

[Spooky23]

In the past I’ve worked at places that used email domains to entitle or disqualify accounts for certain services. Changes are a great way to exploit flaws in business logic.

I used to exploit this phenomenon to get premium campsites at a state park. Sale dates were 30 days out, but reschedules were possible up to 45. So I’d book the magic campsite early, then pay to reschedule before the sale inventory was available. There’s a million similar issues that you can find if you have a knack for it.

I have no information specific to OpenAI, but if smart people do dumb things, there’s often a reason.

[quintes]

I think now wanting to use an anonymous email may be too late.

The bigger problem is if you lose access to an email address and cannot change it. I’ve lost access to email addresses so would be in a bit of trouble in this instance. If a paying account and continued billing even more so

[ryanmccullagh]

Likely because implementing it securely and correctly costs development time.

[rl3 → ryanmccullagh]

Which at the level of funding they’re at, is absolutely not an excuse.

But hey, Claude still sends login codes via SMS in lieu of passwords, so technically OpenAI is an industry leader in the AI sector, implementing utterly basic web account functionality ahead of their competition.

Also, this is in no way intended as shade towards the engineers who actually work on these features. I’m sure they’re under-resourced and deprioritized. Rather, my ire is directed at the executives who fail to make basic, foundational account functionality a priority. The whole thing reeks of “I don’t care, just make it work.” thinking. Because playing lean startup is cool when you have billions of dollars at your disposal.

[aaronrobinson]

They don’t support switching auth either. Prob just not on their list of priorities

[toast0]

Have you done a survey of all web apps? I've certainly bumped into enough that don't let you change the email address that I think 99% is a bit high of an estimate; even if you include the ones that let you change your email address for mailing purposes, but still require you to use the old one to login.

[sandwichukulele]

> So, why do you suppose this is?

this is my personal assumption, observing the golden rule like the other commentor mentioned, this most likely isn't something nefarious but most likely a low priority that they will work at a later. They're busy trying to keep the spotlight in this cutthroat hype cycle and I think it's safe to assume they're busy pushing new models like we saw gpt-4o than low hanging fruit QoL features that might even risk breaking things. You mention how they "flat-out" refuse to answer the question but I think it's reasonable to think that after yesterday's announcement they're swamped with messages to focus on this right now.

[mthoms]

Follow up: OpenAI support flat-out refuses to answer the question.

[thimabi → mthoms]

Are you sure you’ve talked to their support team? Most queries are automatically redirected to their LLM bots, and I suspect even their customer service reps use their models to answer to support tickets.